The recently released Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) on rural education in India contains two main findings. First, learning levels among primary school age children in rural India continue to be shockingly low despite a steady increase in education spending under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the Right to Education (RTE). Second, there has been a steady increase in the fraction of parents abandoning free government schools in favour of fee-charging private schools, with the share of private school enrolment in rural India increasing from 19% in 2006 to 29% in 2013. While reliable annual data does not exist for urban India, the private school share in urban India was estimated at 58% in 2005 (using the Indian Human Development Survey, or IHDS, data), and is likely to be considerably higher in 2013.